Hey all, this weekend I am starting a new group in DH and wanted to introduce them to the "There is always war" theme by having thier first couple adventures set as members of a Penal Malitia acting as the foreguard and cannon fodder of a large military unit. I wanted something of a "band of brothers"/"Dawn of War 2" vibe to give them something of an intimate look into Imperium warfare.

The problem is, I have never run a military themed game before and want this to be more than - simply - a slog across a battlefield. The pcs include a Arbitor, Psyker and Assassin.

I could really use any ideas to push the theme while also keeping the action interesting.

thanks.

Ahh, a quick idea:

The PCs are attached to a unit of guardsmen who are trying to reclaim a lost mining settlement (or something that produces something). For every advance the guard and PCs try to take, artillary fire will rain down on the convoy, inflicting heavy casualties. The PCs will be sent to investigate the source. They'll find a group of traitor guardsmen in the hills nearby, manning 5 artillary pieces, with fresh stocks of ammunition and supplies around them.

Are the goods stolen? Or is someone back at HQ aiding the traitorous scum?

Have them despatched, dirty dozen style, to infiltrate an enemy camp to sieze some vital orders, assassinate an officer, intercept a messenger, or whatever. Just as they accomplish their mission (or are about to) enter waves upon waves of Chaos Space Marines/daemons/tyranids, and they have to run like fun, doing everything in their power to avoid being run down and slaughtered like dogs.

Pull a switch on them, do your planned adventure along side a stalwart (or otherwise) set of allies from the Guard or PDF, have them meet something real nasty along the way, get through the whole thing, then make them make the decsion about whether their erstwihile allies should be let free, liquidated or mind wiped on their say so at the end ...welcome to dark heresy

Who are they fighting? Chaos? Xenos? Civil war?

The cadre of PCs you have indicate an interesting, rather specialized group of characters.

Go watch Apocalypse Now. The PCs are responsible for infiltrating deep into enemy lines and killing a rogue/heretic commander/commisar. His men are fanatical to him, and he's managed to even bring some of the enemy under his sway.

Along the way, show the absolute horror, insanity, and strangeness that is war. Make them do questionable things... not morally, but logically questionable things to further their mission. Whacked out druggie soldier squads, pacifist commisars who cry in the throes of battle (and yet are unrelentingly brutal), psycho armored cavalry who think that war is reality, and that peace is an illusion, whatever. Throw in some good battle scenes to give the characters some combat, but really dig into the kind of thing that sends back guardsmen from a campaign f*cked in the head and twitching and not quite able to rejoin society. Make the people who manage to survive with their minds intact rare, and perhaps the greatest victims of all.

The final confrontation should require the PCs to symbolically assume the mantle of the man they kill, by consuming his soul, his authority, or even his body, and leave them with more questions than answers at the end of the mission. Then, when the PCs have adjusted to the strange surreal nature of war, where being insane is the most sane course of action, pluck them out and throw them into a hive world, which is a constant overflow of information, a different pace, and a completely alien way of life.

For games that take place on the front lines, I'd recommend looking at games with excellent battle sequences and modelling after that. Remember it is not in the looks, but in how it is framed. The different actions should be separated into parts like seize the stronghold, assassination, inflitration, Vehicle stage, hold the line, etc.

Good example: the Battle of Helm's Deep stage from The Twin Towers game

Bad Example: The Guilty Spark Stage from Halo 1

Good Example: The Flood Stage from Halo 1 and the Final Stage of Halo 2

Good Example: The IG campaign for Dawn of War.

Another Idea which can be applied to your frontline settings or to the orthodox Inquisitor setting is to take the settings of the horror games and movies and apply the genre savvy paranoia of Inquisitors would handle it. (And yes, Kill it with fire counts as genre savvy, especially in 40K.)

For example: one of the adventures I have planned for my PC's is an adaptation of Dead Space, partly because it was one of my player's favorite games and partly because I could not stand the game's idiot plot. I want to see if my player's do something equally stupid(let's split up gang) or do the 40K thing("Purge, Kill, Destroy"),either way it will be hilarious.)

But back to the point, here is an idea: have a game that expresses the brutality, starkness, horror(basically, they're normal people who are sent to fight entire races of cosmic horrors en masse; their entire military career consists of "and then Cthulhu awakened and the Guard was sent in"), ignorant and constant-kept-in-the-dark nature of the Guardsman's life, as well as their faith in the Emperor that gives that lights up their dark world and gives them the hope to carry on. Write a detailed plot that is going on around them, with mission objectives large and small, larger than life characters, webs of conspiracies, and mysterious and powerful relics, and try to keep them in the dark about it. You want to make the plot intricate, to take advantage of the PC's will unknowingly mess with it, creating huge turning points in your story. For example, have certain missions where they were supposed to lose and others where they were supposed to win(no forced wins or loses the point of what is supposed to happen is so that it messes with the plot), give them glimpses of what is happening but not enough for them to figure out what is going on initially, have them gain more bits and pieces of the game as it goes on, have them receive contradictory orders such as two muckety-mucks have declared one another traitors and order the players to move in and execute the other, things that will directly affect the plot, big d*mn NPC's who will occasionally join them in the fight(think of them as a combat bonus like the jedi from the first Star Wars Battlegrounds games or the hero units of an RTS like warcraft 3 or the DoW games[not the sole decider of a battle but certainly a boon to the combat squad they're attached to]), have a variety of endings from a planetary last stand to a sudden withdrawal to a great victory. Whatever happens even if they are victorious, they will still never know what the truely happened, what it was they were fighting for, what that vast, mysterious, ancient underground base they were fighting in was, what that giant thing they battled in a Baneblade was(I'm well aware that combat infantry's training is completely different from the training of armor specialists, but you're going to need to take a few liberties), or even entirely what their main antagonist was, why they were their in the first place, or The SHEER IMPORTANCE OF THEIR VICTORY, WHAT IT MEANS, AND HOW Critical their contribution was to it, only that they did their duty to the God-Emperor, and now they are being sent to the next planet to fight on the next battlefield. The END. MANLY TEARS. Make sure to record the whole thing to show your players AFTER the game is finished, so they realize how epic the game was. As a matter of fact that would make a great story. *scribbling notes*

Thanks everyone, some good advice so far and please keep the ideas coming when you have them; some have already seen the light of ... er dark of battle.